Micaela Jerez

Hometown

Salasaka, Ecuador

Education

Bachelor's degree, Economics, Universidad Técnica de Ambato

Biography

Micaela Jerez is a member of the Indigenous Kichwa Salasaka community in Ecuador and holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics. She works on Indigenous language revitalization, intercultural education, community engagement, and cultural preservation. She founded Inka Shimi Kichwa School in her community, an initiative dedicated to promoting the Kichwa language and Indigenous cultural knowledge, and leads the SKY Foundation, a community-based organization that hosts international volunteers and facilitates educational and cultural exchange programs in the Salasaka community, including English-language learning opportunities for local youth.

Micaela served as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Michigan State University, teaching Kichwa and promoting Indigenous Ecuadorian culture through academic and community-based programming. She currently works with Fundación Esquel on initiatives addressing gender-based violence in Indigenous communities, teaches Kichwa and Spanish as a private tutor to students from different countries, and serves as a Kichwa instructor for graduate students at the University of Nariño in Colombia. Her research interests include Indigenous communication, cultural identity, and the preservation of ancestral knowledge, with a focus on how Indigenous youth connect with their languages, cultural practices, and how Indigenous communities foster cultural resilience in Latin America.